


Death of a Sailsman

by Entropy House (AnonEhouse)



Category: Drake's Venture (1980)
Genre: Angst, Haunting, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-10-01
Updated: 2012-10-01
Packaged: 2017-11-15 10:46:03
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,283
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/526447
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AnonEhouse/pseuds/Entropy%20House
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This bears very little resemblance to the classic Miller play, 'Death of a Salesman'. Sir Francis Drake is haunted by his best friend, the man he executed on false charges of conspiring against him. (The execution is historical fact. Whether Drake was haunted is arguable-- but deserved.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Death of a Sailsman

(If you are reading this on any PAY site this is a STOLEN WORK, the author has NOT Given Permission for it to be here. If you're paying to read it, you're being cheated too because you can read it on Archiveofourown for FREE.)

  
(Bearing very little resemblance to the classic Miller play, 'Death of a Salesman', barring the use of shifting consciousness with the muddling of past and present.)

 

"I am honoured and beloved by all true Englishmen," Drake announced. His cabin boy looked up from trimming the lampwicks swaying from the overhead in the captain's cabin.

"Aye, Sir Francis," the boy responded as many a clout around the ear had taught him was best. "You have saved us all from the wicked Spaniards, and the Queen herself does you great honour. Did she not knight you herself and grant you arms?"

Drake scowled. "By right the Arms of the Drakes of Ashe should be mine!" He picked up a dagger from the table and began toying with it.

The cabin boy flinched. "Aye, Master. Twas jealousy and spite kept it from you!" He edged towards the cabin door.

"Aye." Drake looked down and didn't notice as the boy slipped out of the cabin. "Aye, Thomas, so it was." He looked up at the man lounging at his ease on the captain's bed.

 _"You should have listened to me, Francis." Thomas smiled, and fastidiously adjusted the ruff about his neck. Francis was sensitive about the red line that encircled his throat, and Thomas considerately seldom let Francis see it. "I would have been a partner you couldst trust, one who loved you better than life itself."_ "

Drake dropped the dagger to the table, sighed and sat on the bed beside Thomas. "You had so many friends, in court and in your profession. Everyone loved you, Thomas. What was I to thee?"

_"Thou knowest." Thomas's hand reached out, softer than spider's web, and touched Drake's hair, now thinning and losing its fire. "Thou knowest all too well."_

Drake laid his head down between his arms and wept.

_"Musicians?" Doughtie looked askance as a group of men came on board the Pelican, carrying smaller instruments in their arms, and larger instruments winched up after them. "Francis, many of your mariners can drum or play a pipe and several of my soldiers play a horn. What need has the voyage of such as these?"_

_Drake braced his feet and looked hard at Doughtie. "I will show the heathen how civilized we Englishmen be."_

_Doughtie grinned at him rakishly. "That explains the silver plate, as well." He took Drake's arm playfully. "Francis, a gentleman is judged by his actions, not his possessions."_

_Drake growled and shook himself free. "Leave be. It is my will, that should be enough."_

Drake strode the deck of his ship angrily. Bad enough that a Spanish cannonball had gone into his cabin, but his men muttered about curses and ill fortune following his heels. Didn't they remember the treasure he'd brought back so many times, wrestled from the Spanish? Didn't they remember his victories against the Armada? He shook his fist against the albatross that circled the ship's main mast, a harbinger of ill wind and bad weather. "Fetch a bow, and shoot me that bird!" he commanded.

With great reluctance a bow was brought, and an unhappy bowman designated to use it.

_"Francis," came the soft voice of Thomas at his back, "that is most unwise. You know that bird houses the unresting soul of some poor mariner. It is the worst of all possible misfortunes to harm it."_

"How do I know that, because thou sayest so?" Drake roared. The bowman's aim faltered and he loosed an arrow into the sea.

_"I have never lied to thou." Thomas walked up to Drake and touched his lips with one finger, light and chill as a snowflake's caress. "Spare the harmless bird and spare thyself."_

For a moment, Drake looked into Thomas's gentle eyes and wavered. "No! Kill me that bird," he shouted, and the next arrow took the albatross through its center. The bird fell with a shriek and vanished beneath the waves. "It's my ship at my command, Thomas, do thou remember that."

_"Always," Thomas said sadly, before walking away, silent across the deck. "I do remember that always."_

_The wind ruffled Doughtie's hair and whipped his cape about his body. Drake frowned at the darkening sky and the approaching storm. "I've never seen the like of these storms ere you came aboard my ship, Thomas."_

_Doughtie glanced back at Drake, the laughing light that used to be in his eyes dimmed. He said softly, "You have never sailed these waters before, Francis. Why do you seek to blame me for unnatural weather, when you have taken us to unnatural climes?"_

_Drake growled and grabbed Doughtie by the shoulder and pushed him back against the Pelican's rail. "You've bewitched **me** , that's enough. Keep your foul sorceries from my ships!"_

_Doughtie looked at Drake sadly. "I would never so use a friend, Francis. You once said you trusted me."_

_"I was mistaken, then, wasn't I?" Drake stalked away to glare at the clouds._

Drake's bones ached from wounds, from sea-air, from bouts of ague that he survived while weaker men died. But he showed none of this in his stride as he walked the deck of his flagship.

"All is well with the Pelican?" he asked the steersman, who gave him an astonished look before muttering a hasty affirmative.

"Nay, the Pelican no more," Drake said. "Tis the Golden Hinde." He frowned and walked away from the seaman who seemed no more reassured by the renaming.

"Named to honour that ungrateful Hatton," Drake muttered as he went to the rail to observe the sails of the rest of his command.

_"Ungrateful? What harm did he thou?" Thomas paced at Drake's side, ruff a gossamer fluff about his pale neck._

Drake pounded on the rail. "None. For that I would not let him." Drake glared at Thomas. "No more than I would let your brother."

_Thomas's face went still. "John was a good brother to me," he said softly. "And now he has found his peace."_

"Why do you persist in badgering me then? Go sirrah and join him in Hell!" Drake shouted. Nearby crewmen flinched and drew away to work on other areas of the vessel.

_"John made his confession before his passing, as did I. We were both shriven, and forgiven all our sins. John is in Heaven."_

"Then why aren't you with him!"

_"Because thy need of me is by far the greater."_

"Tis a lie! I need no one, least of all thou!"

_Doughtie embraced Drake. He said quietly, "I was always your friend, Francis. When you have no one else, I will comfort thee."_

"I want not such comfort."

_"Nonetheless, thee shall have it." Thomas pressed his cool lips to Drake's forehead. "And my blessings upon thee."_

The sailors pretended not to hear as the great seaman wept, with his head pressed against the mast.

_Ireland was green and red, but the red wouldn't last, Drake thought. Long grasses softened the bones of the rocks, and misty rain slowly thinned away the blood. He drank from a jack of ale, handing it to his companion as they leaned against a wall made of undressed stone, feeling chilled from the letdown after the battle as well as the drizzle. "You've saved my life today, Thomas."_

_"Aye." Thomas drank and then blotted the drops from his beard with a hand-cloth, fastidious as any cat. Then he grinned, teeth bright as moonlight against a night sky of silken beard. "Well, and you have done the same for me, good master Drake."_

_Francis thought about it. It hadn't been the same. He had slaughtered men who were coming at him as well as at Thomas. Thomas had left his own back undefended in order to gut the Irisher who had Drake pinned against this same wall. "Maybe so I would have, but I didn't." He turned and gripped Thomas's shoulders, recklessly grinning. "Did you do it for love of me?" he teased._

_Thomas's face flushed red and his long-lashed eyelids lowered like an embarrassed girl. Softly, he said, "I am as surprised as you are, Francis."_

_After a heart-stopping moment, Francis replied with the truth, "I'm not surprised, Thomas." He pressed his mouth to Thomas's. An instant later, Thomas's mouth parted against his, and Thomas's lean body arched against his, hot and hungry, and desperate._

_He pulled Thomas down into the long grass, heedless of the blood and cattle dung. His wife, Mary, endured his embrace, as a good wife should, never denying him his husband's rights. She never denied him, but she never welcomed him, either. She never moaned his name and clawed at his back as he entered her. Never gripped his buttocks in strong hands and urged him to plough her more deeply. The pain in her eyes was never washed away by affection and lust for him._

_He always felt like a crude, rutting beast with her. With Thomas... he felt loved. He found his release after Thomas's sharp cry was accompanied by a splash of warmth against Drake's hairy belly. He lay on him heavily, Thomas's legs around his hips, Thomas's arms around his chest. Once his heart ceased leaping like a maddened roebuck, he pulled back, and gazed down at his... partner._

_Thomas's eyes opened and he smiled lazily up at Drake. His voice was still soft, but even deeper now, in the aftermath of conjugal love. "Ah, Francis," was all he said._

_Drake read mockery in it and rose quickly, setting his clothing to rights and looking away from Doughtie and the tangled bruise of green grass on which he lay bedded. "Well, now you have what you've wanted, proof of my low-breeding and coarse nature. I wish you joy of it."_

_The grass crunched as Thomas rolled up onto an elbow. His voice sounded hurt, but Drake refused to look at his face. "What we did, we did together, Francis. I did not seduce you into my arms, I swear it by all that's holy."_

_Drake whirled on Doughtie, raging. "Holy? After having committed abomination with me, you would call upon God to sanction the act?" He sneered at the stricken look on Doughtie's face, feeling the heat of anger filling his chest, driving out weakness. "I am no Italianate gentleman such as yourself. Aye, seduction it was, if not sorcery. Be glad I do not slay you for this!" He stalked away from the broken stone wall._

_Doughtie's voice came at his back, resigned. "Be it as thou wilt, Francis. Make your confession and your peace with God, as I shall."_

_Drake turned back in a rush and grasped Doughtie's throat between his hands before the other man could rise. "Name me not to any pandering priest, or I swear I shall slay you both."_

_Doughtie shook his head as best he could within Drake's grasp. "I confess only my own sin, Francis. It is a venial one, but I hope one God can forgive." He added softly, "Murder is not so easily absolved."_

_Drake thrust Doughtie back to the ground and smiled, without warmth. "Then for the good of **my** soul, do thou keep silent."_

_Doughtie nodded, his eyes sadder than ever._

The grippe in his bowels was a minor thing, surely. Drake strode the deck restlessly, looking ahead, always ahead. His crew eyed him aslant, and muttered behind his back, but he was accustomed to that. No one dared to say aught to him aloud. No one had the nerve, after Doughtie. Yes, Drake had silenced all throats by cutting off one head. Abruptly he headed for the rail and was violently ill.

_A gentle hand brushed cool and soft against his neck, soft lips touched his ear. "It's hard, Francis, I know. You cannot feed on hate without sickening yourself. Give over, go home, be at peace."_

"The Queen relies on me," Francis muttered.

_"The Queen loves you not."_

"Thinkest thou I know not that?" Francis slumped with his head resting against the rough scratch of a tarred rope wrapped about a bollard. "But she needs the wealth I bring her."

 _"Ah, Francis." The hand brushed again at his nape. "Always a faithful dog to the wrong master."_ "

"Aye." Francis closed his eyes. "Too old and mangy a cur to seek another." He showed his teeth and pulled himself upright. "But I will die with my fangs sunk in Spanish throats." When he looked again, Thomas was gone. It had been unkind mentioning throats, but then he was always unkind to Thomas, and always forgiven.

_"Will you not destroy this false vision, before it destroys you, Francis?" Doughtie looked at Drake sadly as he struggled to rise from his sickbed, to don his armour._

"Nay, look ye, there are Spanish treasure galleons in San Juan harbour. I will have them!"

_Doughtie spoke softly. "Ye have more wealth than ye could ever spend in a long lifetime, and no child to inherit, nor beloved friends to endow with mementoes. What good is gold to a dead man?"_

"It will buy me honour!"

_Doughtie sighed and kissed Drake on the forehead. "I will wait for thee, my friend." He smiled and drifted away like smoke._

The lead coffin containing Drake's remains tipped into the ocean. No one watched as it sank. No one noticed the lone bird that gave a long, wailing cry, circling gracefully once over the sinking box before flying away, its white body disappearing against the sun. 


End file.
